The door creaked open as the proclaimed insanist stepped into the dusty, forgotten abode, immediately taking in her surroundings and filling her heart with nostalgia. Home. Out of the darkness, a crippled figure emerged; its right leg looked crooked, trailing behind the figure as it scraped a sharp object behind it, which glinted in the surrealistic light coming from the door behind her. The door was wide open, and she cast a long, black shadow over the expanding beam of light; the small figure lingered just beyond her own shade.
Her breath caught in her throat; there was something familiar about the small figure, though she did not know what gave her such a feeling. She stared at it, and listened as it tapped ever so closer to her shadow. Every step was followed by a hot metallic smell that thickened the atmosphere. Sparks flew with an all too realistic sound as the object the unknown stranger was carrying hit the wooden ground that she was standing on. The sparks lit up the face of an impish child, probably around the age Aimee was when she first entered the asylum. Even though the child’s face was sweet and almost ignorant as a toddler’s should be, her blonde curls and baby blue eyes were smeared and stained with a thick, red liquid. Aimee felt her heart break for the young child in an empathetic way; behind the red stains, which emitted metallic odors that made Aimee cringe, she could see a vague glimpse of an innocent girl, a child with wide eyes and a cheeky grin, corrupted by the spite, by the hate, by the pure maliciousness of wicked demons. A similar feeling arose inside of her and she found herself ready to jolt with adrenaline, as if she were about to fight for her life.
A faint noise echoed off of the walls--or what Aimee assumed to be walls, the darkness still trapping her inside her island of light, with the child growing ever so slightly larger in size with each timid step. It sounded high-pitched, but nothing like Aimee had heard before; it sounded as if it were a child’s giggling, but was distorted, each faint giggle metallic and piercing. Aimee crouched down low to the ground, as if to hide in the shadows herself, despite the rays bearing down on her. She placed her hands to her hips, to search for something she assumed would be latched to her side--what she was looking for, she didn’t really know; nevertheless, she stared at her calloused hand as she pulled it back into the light and found it void of anything.
She jolted her head back up to stare ahead at...nothing. The small figure had disappeared; Aimee had been distracted for one second too long and the girl was nowhere to be seen. Panic began to build inside her; she felt her sweat pores open, her blood cells rushing, her very heartbeat deteriorating her rib cage to nothing. She felt pressure on every part of her body, as if gravity had intensified tenfold and forced her down to the ground with every struggling move she made.
“You’re home,” a monotone voice, like that of a depressed male child, whispered from...directly behind Aimee.
Before she had time to react, Aimee felt something latch onto her back and dig its surprisingly firm fingers into her spine, causing her to scream out in agony. She tried reaching back to the menace, throwing her arms behind her head, but couldn’t find where it was. She fell to her knees with a crash, fire sprouting up both of her legs and engulfing her in absolute pain. She looked up and only saw the ray of light extending just beyond where she was, as it spun around her vision at a million miles an hour. Soon, it began to fade into the darkness, slowly, so slowly…
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Her head slammed against the flat glass surface she leaned against.
“Ooh, that one sounded like a doozy. You okay back there?”
Aimee rubbed her palm against her forehead and groaned; it felt like the sun itself, even before she had fallen asleep.
“Yeah, Mama, I’m fine. Just a little ache is all.”
She looked back to the window, past the line of saliva most likely originating from her passed-out state and to the road they were traveling on; old deep red brick buildings lined the street, some with stark white porches protruding out of them with decorative, expertly-crafted beams holding them in place. Sometimes children sat on the decks, picking at the pieces of wood that their parents had neglected to finish, for one reason or another. Cars passed them by, with their occupants honking and waving at Aimee’s mother, who repeated the actions.
Twelve years, and nothing had changed.
They pulled in to their own driveway, though Aimee was still positive that the only marks of individuality were the ironically community-oriented numbers posted on their lawn, used to guide guests that never seem to find their way anyway. Her mother immediately set out on the activities she planned for Aimee’s arrival home; as they entered the house, her mother disappeared into the kitchen, and the only sounds Aimee could hear were the ticking of the owl clock above head and the clash and clang of pots.
Memories started flooding through Aimee’s head as she ventured through her childhood home: there was the spot where she cracked her first bone, right on the living room floor; set in the corner was the dusty old computer that Aimee had asked her mother to turn into a square ghost for a Halloween decoration; just above the fireplace was the small hole that Aimee had put worms into to scare her mother. Of course, she was only six the last time she was in the house, so not many events were really experienced in the first place.
Aimee found herself wandering into a small, confined room with only a small rectangular window shedding light onto its fine details. There was a small bed with a white trim on its frame and details cut into it, resembling horses; that is, they would resemble horses if the frame wasn’t so corroded, the white replaced with black, horses with demons, dreams with nightmares. Aimee felt a chill run up her spine, making the room feel ten degrees lower than it should have been on the heated summer day. Barely any memories of the enclosed living space--which Aimee knew she had most likely spent a majority of her time in--came back to her, yet the atmosphere of it carried an air of uneasiness, an unsettling feeling that made Aimee nervously balance on alternating feet.
A presence behind her made her head snap back suddenly, and she hopped back with a start when she caught sight of a small, lifeless figure in the corner chair. A pale white doll with round, plumb arms dangling to its side and legs set off the edge of the chair stared ahead at her. Something made her wince; maybe she was just anxious to be back home. Yet, the doll bore it’s eyes into Aimee, reaching into her soul and keeping hold. She was enveloped by the way it’s faded blue glass single eye made her heart panic - part of her wanted to stare at it, reveal origin. It was a pale pool of a painter’s light handiwork gone to the years, and it always stared ahead of itself, as if searching for something unattainable within reach. Aimee then felt a chill down her neck and spine, down to her legs that pricked with electricity and paralyzed her, clenching her every limb and refusing to let even a twitch of a finger. She wanted to move, she couldn’t. Her inquiry on the doll faded, along with any urge to pick it up. Altogether, she felt herself swallowed into an abyss of black light. It was her and the doll, alone, without a single other entity to ease Aimee’s turbulent mind. It spoke to her, silently, so silently that even Aimee’s straining ears couldn’t pick up more than a childlike whisper. Terror and horror made Aimee’s adrenaline pulse and she could hear her heartbeat in her ears, crashing into her head like rural thunder.
The doll looked like it had been thrown previously, for it had a fragment of it’s head missing in the back left area. From the hole filled with nothing but tangled artificial hair remains, cracks twisted like skewed vines across the dolls skull. The way they spider webbed and splintered began to make Aimee’s breath uneven and quick. Staring at the doll unwillingly, she watched while the crack nearest to the dolls chin dripped blood on the floor, making soft clicks on the polished oak. Pat, pat, pat on the floor where a puddle of thick, warm, newly shed life formed; Aimee felt the waves of warmth on her skin as the blood seemed to take on a life of its own, becoming a sentient being in itself as it began to pour out, quickly, like maroon rapids. Aimee felt that with each drop she would become closer to drowning. The doll’s porcelain white skin became stained with the dark red liquid, and the lake of red traveled towards Aimee. She stood, helplessly becoming very aware of her newfound doom; every movement she tried to make strained the muscles in her body, tore at them, clenched them even tighter until they were numb. Her heart stopped every inch the blood traveled, and the doll just stood, with that painted smile that seemed almost sadistic now. One more look in the doll’s eyes and Aimee began to get devoured, the mere look sending her soul and mind into oblivion.
Knock, knock. The world came back in a dizzying rush of dull colors. The colors that would seem distasteful to anyone else now comforted Aimee, compared to the vibrancy of her imagination. There were no more rapids or lakes of red to be found at her feet or on the doll. Somehow, though, the doll still looked at Aimee in the same manner, almost as if it knew what she had just imagined and took joy in knowing what it did to Aimee.
“Aimee?” Her mother’s voiced flowed to her like the soft melody of a flute. Relief replaced the rapid pulse of her blood flow, and her paranoia of the doll died down - only enough for Aimee to contain what she was sure would be trembled in her voice if she had spoke only a moment before.
“Yes?” Her own voice croaked, hoarse, cracked. Just like the doll, she thought, not daring to take another glance back at it.
“I made dinner. It’ll be ready in ten minutes.” Not even bothering to open the door, her mother’s footsteps faded, and she was alone again.
She dashed out of the door without another second’s hesitation.
While her mother was finishing her dinner preparation, Aimee sat in her chair, which creaked with every slight movement she made; they were the same chairs she had left all those years ago, although now the noise was used less as a machine for pestering and more for the simple comfort of having noise around her. She gazed around, trying to distract her mind from the incident in the bedroom. The light from the woven-vine lamps above illuminated the room, with the light reflecting off of the floor and the various decor that rose above it; a cabinet sat behind her, the oak inscribed with a trim similar to that of her bedpost, only with a set of vines instead of a stampede of manes. Inside the shining glass were stark-white china plates and teacups, with similar vines painted on them. They looked so peaceful, so calming…
Aimee had to dart her eyes back to the table in front of her. She didn’t want her mind to distort one of the only things in the house that put her mind at ease.
Soon, a feast of dripping meat, golden vegetables, and hearty loaves of frozen wheat were set before Aimee. The sight of the many different plates set before her as her mom shot off miscellaneous questions set her mind into a state of nostalgia, of reminiscence, of longing. Longing for the innocence the meal used to present, before a lifeless soul came into her life and demented every possible good memory she had attempted to maintain.
A half-hour of monotone questions, monotone responses, and dull, repetitious conversation led Aimee to her bedroom once more as she tired of the day and prepared for bed. Though she was capable of handling a simple task such as going to sleep well enough, her mother insisted that she wanted to make Aimee “feel at home”, a task so simple that she had failed to accomplish even during Aimee’s infancy. After changing into dull gray sweatpants and a black tee she had packed, Aimee’s mother wrapped the bedsheets around her tightly; she could barely move any of her limbs, and protested against her mother, repressed memories of the past years slowly reaching her frontal lobes. After some debate on the maximum comfort level of sheet tightness, Aimee’s mother caved and loosened the sheets a bit. As she grabbed at the ends of the blankets and fluffed them out, Aimee’s mother’s eyes gazed around the room as if to ensure that everything had remained untouched by the invisible hands that meandered into the bedroom. Her eyes stopped in the corner, and she let out a gasp.
“This old thing!” Her mother exclaimed, forgetting the mundane task set before her and stomping over to the old chair that...that held the lifeless soul.
After fiddling with the doll for some time, Aimee’s mother picked it up and dashed to the side of Aimee’s bed, making Aimee jump back in the little amount of space she was given with the still-tucked right side of the bed. She begged and pleaded for her mother to just leave the doll be, throw it out even. It was old, decrepit and completely unorthodox for a woman to have in her bedroom. Her mother only responded with a chuckle; Aimee figured that her newfound maturity and independence threatened her and forced the nervous laugh.
“You’re sleeping with the doll. It’ll do you good.”
Any argument Aimee made would have passed like air through a vent.
Her mother stepped out of the room, peeking in for another second or two to wish her “mature” daughter goodnight before shutting the lights off and filling the room with shadows. Aimee shifted under the covers, throwing the blankets this way and that until she found a position comfortable to her, laying on her side with her back turned to the blue pools boring into the ceiling. She knew that it would not harm her; the thought of an ancient artifact such as the doll simply coming to life was cliche, and Aimee just passed it off as a trick of the mind used to drive her away from the place she once called home, now a strange place filled with memories devoid of sense and innocence.
Black shades drifted over Aimee’s eyes as she stared at the blank wall across from her, and she soon found herself somewhere...else. She was standing; yes, she definitely felt the pressure of the ground on her feet, solid and unyielding. The place she was in was illuminated from a faint light without a source, casting what seemed like moonlight onto stark white hallway walls. Doorways lined each side of the hallway, stretching from positive to negative infinity. The doors were dull gray, with small square windows towards the top, covered not with glass but with steel bars. This place was familiar…
Then she heard them.
They started out as dull groans, sounds of pained animals. Then, as Aimee listened closer, the groans increased in volume, and were soon replaced by a harmony of shrieks and screams. Aimee jumped back as something pounded against the door next to her, making the door shake in its hinges. The screams finalized the image in Aimee’s mind. She knew why she recognized this place.
She had spent the last twelve years locked up in one of these cells, imprisoned by the door, a constraining tight jacket, and her own insanity.
Aimee slowly stepped away from the trembling door; if it were twelve years ago, the shrieks and pounds would have made her imitate the shrill noises, but the years spent living with the sounds desensitized her.
As she stepped through the never ending hallway, women screamed their threats, their pleas, their cries of innocence. Most didn’t seem to realize that it wasn’t their actions that they were locked away for, but because of the actions of neglectful loved ones and lives left void of happiness or care. Some of these people had grown on her; others made her quake in her shoes at the mere memory of their existence.
She passed by a certain cell, and heard a faint giggle...the same giggle she had heard in her dream in the car. Her mind urged her to run away as fast as possible, forget the sound and go on to live her content life in the real world; but her curiosity overtook her. She turned to find the cell door gaping open, revealing a white room. She stepped inside, and the soft, white ground absorbed her foot, the soft material accomplishing everything but a feeling of comfort. As she stepped further, the giggle became louder and louder, again becoming like a needle inside her ear.
A scene was sprawled out before her; a woman laid down on the ground of the cell, blood pooling at her feet as tears streamed down her face. The woman was beautiful, recognizable; she knew the face, though the only memories she had of it were of a time past then, when wrinkles and crow’s feet replaced the young features. Aimee could hear a faint voice without a source, but only fragments, short phrases or words that seemed to be connected.
“Sorry...dead...miscarriage..”
The scene disappeared, vanishing into the padded walls as another figure emerged; a girl with a tight jacket wrapped around her body, rocking back and forth in a fetal position with wide, frantic eyes darting back and forth between the two padded walls. The girl had a grin forced onto her face.
“At least its gone…”
Aimee was alone again. The giggle had erupted yet again, in full force, stabbing at her eardrum and making her cringe. Just when she thought the giggling was going to be too much, like the whole world would collapse around her and release her into a pit of endless despair and terror, the likes of which she would never be able to escape from...it stopped. She gazed around, and saw the familiar red stains covering the once-clean white walls, like they were bleeding themselves and were crying out for aid. The room started compressing around her, until the space was too small for her to lift her arms from her side; she was paralyzed again, in the place she had grown to hate.
The lifeless soul emerged from the darkness.
“Why’d you leave me, mommy?"